10 Best Popeye Moments
5. He Needs Me
“And all at once I knew, I knew at once, I knew he needed me.”
In a dreamy song and dance sequence, Olive basks in the feeling of Popeye needing her after she catches him thinking out loud about how he shouldn’t have taken baby Swee’pea away from her. She ducks away from the window of Popeye’s shelter and begins to sing in the dark empty street, prancing and moving with all the grace of a Disney princess, and all the drama as well. For such a standoffish character, it is lovely to see Olive soften up for once, her jagged and huffy movements replaced with gently swaying arms and delicately dancing legs. Shelley Duvall’s light and airy voice lends to this scene beautifully, her voice like a lullaby in the night.
Duvall plays Olive Oyl as though she really is the cartoon character, exuberating the perfect levels of huffy and exasperated and dreamy all at the right moments. It is almost difficult to believe that this is the same actress who in the same year appeared in The Shining, where she spent so much of the film screaming in distress. Duvall’s Olive Oyl is a “real femme fatale”, as Duvall described the character in an interview with Roger Ebert in 1980. Her whole performance is wonderful, but this scene really expresses how brilliant Duvall’s portrayal is.
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4. She Loves Me… Not?!
“She won’t marry me… she will!”
Miss Olive Oyl is to be engaged to Bluto, the big bearded brute in charge of the town. Everyone is very nervous about it. Bluto has a bad temper, and Olive is taking her time getting ready for the engagement party. Whilst he is waiting, Bluto plucks petals from a flower, engaging in a game of ‘she will marry me, she won’t’. With every ‘she will marry me’ the partygoers erupt into cheers of celebration and agreement, eager not to displease the man in charge. But with each ‘she won’t’, they shake their heads, and wave their hands in dismissal, as if the mere idea is heresy.
Paul L. Smith’s portrayal of Bluto is perfect. He grins like a child who has gotten away with something naughty, feeding off the praise from the people around him. His angry glare is like a deadly laser, his eyes scanning for the next scapegoat for his problems. Every moment he is on screen is a delight, his constant growling always keeping us on the edge of our seats in case he snaps. In that way he isn’t too dissimilar to popular Disney Animation villain Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (1992). Smith perfectly embodies the big baddie, so it is easy to understand why the townspeople are so afraid of him. The comedy of this moment plays so well with the tension present in the narrative, the seriousness of this child’s game drawing a huge grin on the face of anyone who watches it.
3. Everything Is Food Food Food Fight!
“I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
If you were looking for a real-life cartoon, look no further – this scene is the one to beat.
The scene itself takes place inside a restaurant in Sweethaven, where burger enthusiast Wimpy (Paul Dooley) is trying all his best tricks to bag himself a bite. As he is just about to give up hope, he spies Popeye, who is just about to tuck into a burger of his own, and worms his way over to try his luck with this newcomer. Of course, Popeye gives his burger over and begins to confide in Wimpy about his search for his father. This is when some local ruffians, who are listening in, begin to laugh out loud at what they are hearing. As it turns out, they picked a fight with the wrong guy…
The music in this scene chugs along at a steady, constant pace, accompanying the movements of the characters – none of whom seem to be able to eat their food in peace. Every shenanigan in the book seems to be happening at once: an explosion of ketchup from a glass bottle, a mop wiping up someone’s plate before they can have a bite. The gags carry on from the opening song into the fight. The action is non-stop, there is not a moment to rest for the one-eyed sailor as he takes out the bad guys who refused to apologise for their rude behaviour. It is hilariously constructed, the physical jokes fall into place in a Charlie Chaplin-type of fashion. Not only is this scene genius in its physicality, it is a key moment for Popeye, as we (and the people of Sweethaven) learn how tough he is for the first time. It is one of the defining moments of the film, a buzzing hive of gags and important character moments.
